Reminder:
"This is spoken English."
"This is spoken Czech."
This is a thought.

Chapter 7. Lying.

The apartment was unbearably quiet. At first she wondered where everyone was.

There was no one else. It took her a moment to remember it.

Just her and Radek. No little five-year-olds leaving havoc behind. Entire rooms littered with toys, blankets, and food wrappers. It was all her aunt could do to keep up. Anna tried to help sometimes, but he was little better than when he was a toddler and Anna didn't have the energy.

Just her and Radek. At Aunt Emílie's house, she had been distracted. She pushed through her finals and made it through the summer without incident. Aunt Emílie didn't force her to participate, to talk. She was too busy, and probably holding out hope that Radek would eventually get back to them. Periodically she would curse his bad communication. More often, she would reassure herself with his final warning to her: it would likely be a long time before he could return any messages.

If Radek told her why that was, she never passed that on to Anna.

Anna slipped out from under the covers and took in the blank slate of a room. At home, she had posters of musicians and actors, the solar system and a periodic table of elements. She could put up all the posters she wanted here, but she knew it would never be home. Last night, before going to bed, she'd taped up a picture of her mother over the nightstand.

This morning it was just a reminder that she wasn't here. Just a reminder that this wasn't home.

Anna opened the blinds on the window, letting a box of golden sunlight onto the carpet. The room was warm. The furnace rumbled. Jets roared outside. Inside was as still as a cemetery. She ought to know.

She brushed away her tears when she realized she wouldn't be able to visit the grave anymore. Not until Radek moved them back, and even then he said they'd most likely live in Brno. He said it was too late to get a job at the university this year, and he had unfinished business here.

Anna crept out into the living room and halted.

Now, this was chaos the likes of which even her cousin couldn't create. Somehow, between last night and this morning, the place had been strewn with papers and open books. Even a whiteboard on a rolling stand had been brought in, a tangle of numbers and Greek letters written in black. Maybe from the office she'd walked past last night. And stretched out on the couch, propped up with gray plush pillows, was Radek.

She slid into the kitchen and looked around. It looked untouched, like the living room looked last night. Given the sudden disaster in there, though, she doubted the place was usually this nice. He either pulled out all the stops in preparing the place for her arrival or… she didn't know.

He didn't live here.

It wasn't so far-fetched. He said something about the military base. Maybe he lived somewhere else. Somewhere smaller. Then he moved here when she was coming. But for some reason it looked lived-in all the same.

Decorated with pictures she couldn't imagine him looking at and a photo of one of his pigeons.

She opened the refrigerator. A quart of milk, a tomato, a loaf of bread, and an unopened package of deli meat. Maybe he ate out a lot.

"Good morning."

She wouldn't have been startled, but it was so quiet. She hadn't heard him rustle a single paper. She turned toward him. "Hi," she said. "What do you eat around here?"

He looked in the fridge like he didn't know what was in there. "I usually eat at the base. I didn't think to get anything…" The random—and unspoiled—tomato seemed as odd to him as it did to her.

She went to the pantry and looked in. Oat bran cereal and six cans of chicken soup. She was now convinced. No one lived here.

"But we can stop at a café or something when we go shopping. You're alright with shopping today?"

Anna just nodded as she walked back into the living room. Radek followed at a distance. Anna wondered how long that would last…

She leaned over to study the whiteboard.

"It was a problem I didn't have time to work on until… well, recently."

She glanced at him. Why bother to explain it if he wasn't going to explain it at all? She had no idea what it meant, but it was a strange combination of Czech and English notations alongside the Greek letters and number. She followed the first equation to its conclusion—or, rather, where he'd stopped. She tried to make some sense of it, but this was no basic-level stuff. She followed the algebra of it, anyway, as he tried to sort out and simplify some mystery variable. Seemingly without her bidding, she reached out to touch the board, following the unknown "y" through its maze of constants.

He eliminated a change-in-alpha somewhere. She had no idea how. She held her hand over it and tried to find it.

"I didn't know you were interested…"

"I'm not," she said. She snapped her hand back and scolded herself for lying. Without her interest in this, she had precious few others. Was she trying to avoid the conclusion that her mother always told her about? Anna was more like Radek than she sometimes wanted to admit. "I mean sort of… I don't know what I'm interested in."

"I see." He sighed at the work on the board and picked up a stack of papers. He aligned the edges as he said, "We can get going whenever you'd like. I must stop at the base to drop off some things for Rodney."

She shrugged. "Fine."

Anna went to her room, listening to his industrious rustling in the living room. She suspected his version of "cleaning up" involved putting a stack of unrelated items in the nearest drawer. Maybe that was just her bias talking. Only someone so disorganized could get lost for half a year. Or seven.

Anna was used to more wardrobe than this. She had five days' worth of clothing, and not a lot of variety there. Her heaviest coat had been left behind for charity. She was told Radek could purchase everything she needed, replace anything she had. Her suitcase held mostly irreplaceable knick-knacks. Photos. Paperwork. Anna realized this year she wasn't the type to hold on to mementos.

She changed into warm clothes. It looked pretty chilly outside. They took a silent taxi to a silent breakfast. Anna tried to practice reading things in English on the highway and the main streets to pass the time, but as Radek announced they were approaching the base, there were no buildings to look at. Just a sign that said something about some-sort-of-vehicles only on an exit. She didn't have time to read it.

Uniformed officers stood at attention at a series of gates, checking every possible form of identification for Radek and double- and triple-checking Anna's passport. They asked questions in rapid and intense English. After making it through the tunnel and securely into the mountain, she was left unceremoniously in a small room on ground level.

Radek said he'd be back soon.

Anna slumped into the nearest chair around the single round table. It looked like it'd been plucked out of the eighties, along with the artificial plant in its middle. The ceiling tiles looked like they were even older.

This wasn't so bad, she told herself. Could have been worse. She didn't know what she'd expected, though. If she were to believe her mother, he lived in a condition of disinterest toward other human beings. On the other hand, she said he was the most kind-hearted, gentle man she'd ever met. It was a nice contradiction she'd never sorted out.

She was used to making her own opinions anyway.

Maybe he was curious about her. He asked a few questions last night over pizza. She hadn't answered many of them. That was still a hint he was trying at this whole "family thing." He'd done it before. Pretty well, if she remembered. Just in time she reminded herself not to trust the impressions, memories, and idols of a seven-year-old.

The door pushed open. She started to stand up until she saw that it wasn't Radek. It was the man from the airport, Doctor McKay.

Even though she hadn't expected him, he clearly expected her. "Hello, Anna."

"Doctor McKay?"

"Hi," he said again. He didn't seem to know what he was going to say. He looked around. "Where's Rad—your dad?" he asked.

"Looking for you," she said.

"Oh." He walked further into the room. Anna tensed, unsure why she was suddenly nervous. "Good. Because I wanted to talk to you."

"Me?"

"Unless Zelenka has another daughter."

She waited. No reason for him to be sarcastic. And he spoke too fast.

He turned toward her, smiled—in a sort of creepy, awkward way—and clasped his hands before him. "So," he said. "How's it going?"

"Fine?"

"Fine." He sounded disappointed. "What do you think of this?" He gestured around the room. When Anna gave him just a blank stare, he said, "Your dad's, um, you know, job."

"Oh." She shrugged. "I don't know." Not that she knew exactly what he did. She suspected that, if it were up to her, they might never talk about it. Except she sort of wanted to know. Hadn't she wanted to be just like him when she grew up once?

"You mean he didn't tell you about it?" Doctor McKay pulled out the chair nearest the door and sat in it.

Anna didn't think the equations and tornado of science in the living room this morning counted as knowing what she thought about his job. It most certainly didn't count as Radek telling her anything about it. With all the guards outside, she figured it was a secret, anyway. She shook her head.

"Figures." He rolled his eyes. "He's running out of time."

"There's a time?" she asked. She was pretty sure that wasn't what she wanted to say, but she couldn't figure out the word she wanted and he seemed impatient.

He didn't seem to recognize that she had said anything. "Yes," he finally answered. "He was doing, for lack of a better word, important things." He glanced at her. Anna didn't know what to think of that, and it must have showed. "No, no, no, no, not that you aren't important."

Anna took half a moment to translate that. She wondered if she would ever automatically take "no" to mean a negative instead of affirmative. * It would take time.

"He stopped because of me," Anna said. "And he didn't want to."

That confirmed half of that contradiction. He'd much rather work on this whatever-it-was than put everything on hold for her. On the other hand… he did put everything on hold. That counted for something.

"No, I mean he did want to," Doctor McKay sighed. Doctor McKay seemed pretty put off about the whole situation. "And if he doesn't change his mind in a week, this will be the biggest mistake he's ever made."

"Mistake." This wasn't a mistake. He'd done that already, anyway. He missed saying goodbye to her mother. He missed her funeral, and he missed eight years of Anna's life. But that meant his colleagues thought she was a mistake. No wonder he was reluctant to talk about his work. "Me."

"Yes." He didn't say anything until he noticed the look on her face. "I mean—no. Not you. Well, yes, you, but not specifically."

Anna leaned back in her chair, deciding not to try to decipher whatever it was he was saying. "What do I do?"

"You don't want him to make the biggest mistake of his life, do you?"

She shook her head. The last thing he needed was another mistake on top of all the ones he'd already made. And Doctor McKay still hadn't answered her question.

"If he stays with us, he can continue his work. It's very important work," Doctor McKay said. "If he stays here, he can't. It's a win-win situation. He gets to keep his work and you."

From Anna's perspective, right now everything was a loss. Anna couldn't decide if he said more than she caught or if he'd left out a major part of the equation. That part being... Radek didn't actually work here. This was like a vacation and he worked somewhere else. So he didn't actually live in his apartment. He didn't even live on base. He'd lied.

Not only that...

Radek went to pretty extreme lengths to tell a convincing lie.

"So I tell him to go back. Where?"

"Unfortunately, I don't have the right to tell you that," he said, although the tone in his voice said he thought he ought to. "Only he can tell you."

And the strange deadline. What was in a week? She didn't ask. He probably couldn't tell her.

"I'll tell you what," Doctor McKay said finally. "You ask him where he's been the last year. Ask him today. You want to know that, right?" When she nodded, he said, "Right. If he tells you the name of anything in the world you're familiar with… he's lying."

Anna took a moment to digest that. So he was lying... Maybe Doctor McKay hadn't meant to confirm that notion so clearly. Or maybe he had. She remembered a time when she took his word as the honest truth, the words of every famous and wise man had to be tested against Radek's.

But was when she was small, and he could no wrong in her eyes. Now she knew that, like the rest of the world, he lived for himself. He arrived only when he meant to, was capable of lying and manipulating a situation to gain a perceived upper hand.

Probably not unlike what Doctor McKay was trying to do right now. Only she was unsure what Doctor McKay wanted in an upper hand.

She watched him critically. "Why tell me this?"

He shrugged. "I want you to know the truth. Then you can decide for yourself."

Czech Things

* "Ano" in Czech means "yes" but the Czech equivalent of "yeah" is the shorter "no." How confusing is that?

A/N: Apparently millions of people (like 10% of the population-ish?) in the Czech Republic speak English, so it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that she's pretty good at it because she could have gotten to practice at home. I tried to give her realistic dialogue for her English with that in mind, while still moving things along. She'd probably use way more Czech, but I didn't want to mangle any more of the language than necessary since my experience with Czech begins and ends with Stargate: Atlantis…